1119 East Fwy
Houston, Texas 77002
Ph. 713-522-2723
December 1, 2014 For immediate release: Jason Nodler
The Catastrophic Theatre Announces 2015 Season Artistic Director
Kirk Markley
Managing Director
Tamarie Cooper
Associate Director
Board of Directors
Paul Brockman
President
Caroline Starry LeBlanc
Vice President
Mark Yzaguirre
Treasurer
Catastrophic is pleased to once again introduce Houston audiences to a fresh voice in American theatre. As it did with Mickle Maher (The Strangerer and Spirits to Enforce) and Miki Johnson (American Falls and Fleaven), Catastrophic will produce 2 plays by Mark Schultz in a single season, beginning with the world premiere of The Blackest Shore and ending with Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy. Other productions include a new play by audience favorite Mickle Maher, an avant garde classic by María Irene Fornés and, of course, a brand new Tamarie Cooper musical. As always, tickets to all Catastrophic Theatre performances are Pay-‐What-‐You-‐Can. Free refreshments are provided after each performance and everyone is invited to stay for drinks and conversation with the cast. Anika Jackson
Secretary
Jennifer Elkins
Mark Johnson
Lise Liddell
Paul Menzel
Tim Thomson
Advisory Board
Bill Arning
Frank Black
Gregory Boyd
Susan Choi
Lisa D'Amour
Shaila Dewan
Dan Dubrowski
Karen Farber
Daniel Johnston
Rich Levy
Mickle Maher
Kenn McLaughlin
Daryl Morey
Jim Parsons
Emily Todd
Rebecca Udden
Dominic Walsh
Michael Zilkha — The Blackest Shore by Mark Schultz * World Premiere * February 13 -‐ March 7, 2015 Stuart, 16, is making a movie: graphic violence, extreme sex, the walking dead. Of course it's also a love story. And it's all true. In fact it's more horribly true than anyone, even Stuart, can rightly comprehend. When Stuart begins to display increasingly troubling behavior, our sympathies are torn between a son and a father-‐-‐both crippled by self-‐loathing-‐-‐and each of the lives they touch, as they try to negotiate the impossible circumstances of a mysterious, horriZic episode from Stuart's youth. Mark Schultz is the real deal and we're so excited to share his intrepid, devastating, eminently funny work with you. The Hunchback Variations by Mickle Maher April 10 -‐ May 2, 2015 "Suddenly a distant sound is heard, coming as if out of the sky, like the sound of a string snapping, slowly and sadly dying away." -‐ Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard The extraordinary Mickle Maher is back! Maher has become a Houston favorite a result of Catastrophic productions of his plays The Strangerer, Spirits to Enforce, There Is A Happiness That Morning Is, and the world premiere of The Pine. In The Hunchback Variations, noted composer Ludwig Van Beethoven and noted hunchback Quasimodo team up to chair a panel on sound design. More speciZically they are explaining their fruitless efforts to create the impossible cue: that bafZling sound effect described at the end of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. The panel follows the pair's frustrated efforts, complicated by the fact that they are both quite deaf. Thematically, the play explores the creative impulse and the question of artistic endeavor. Is it a noble thing to continue to try in the face of inevitable failure or is it better to simply remain silent? The University of Tamarie by Tamarie Cooper, Patrick Reynolds, and friends * World Premiere * July 17 -‐ August 29, 2015 As a mother of a child entering kindergarten, Tamarie's got education on her mind. This summer, school's in session at the University of Tamarie! Tamarie takes on the Texas State Board of Education, drama departments, high school memories, schoolyard bullies, hot teachers, Greek life, John Hughes movies, standardized testing, her own academic shortcomings (she's a three-‐time college drop out!), and much, much more. Enroll now for a truly twisted and seriously silly educational experience. The University of Tamarie is the 18th installment of the Tamarie Cooper juggernaut. Since 1996, Tamarie has wowed Houston audiences almost every summer with an entirely original, full-‐scale, musical comedy extravaganza -‐ Zilled to the brim with songs and gags and hi-‐jinx from some of Houston's funniest theatre artists. Without question, her original plays have been among the most wildly popular summer offerings. Tamarie's shows truly are a unique and uniquely Houstonian phenomenon. The Danube by María Irene Fornés September 25 -‐ October 17, 2015 American businessman Paul visits Budapest and quickly falls in love with native Eve. As the play makes its way through a militaristic fever-‐dream, the characters slowly undergo an inexplicable, debilitating, and grotesque transformation. In the face of it all, their love endures. María Irene Fornés is a titan of the modern American stage and was a playwriting mentor to Artistic Director Jason Nodler at NYU. In the school of past experimental, tragicomic productions such as Spirits to Enforce, Anna Bella Eema, Crave, or Our Late Night, this will be a theatre experience unlike any other. Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy by Mark Schultz November 20 -‐ December 12, 2015 Teenage Charlotte's beautiful mother is dead. Turning for comfort to the story of Helen of Troy, Charlotte is convinced that beauty, desire and fame can help her bring her mother back and punish the world that took her away in the Zirst place. Getting beauty tips from her popular friend, seeking career advice on how to be a porn star from a guidance counselor who may or may not be having an affair with her, and searching for love from the football jock who barely even knows she exists, Charlotte Zinds herself searching in fantasy for what she cannot Zind in reality and destroying the life of the only friend she may have had in the process. But in the depths of pain, she comes to discover an unexpected grace. Inspired by Euripides but with its sights set Zirmly on contemporary America, Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy is an unsettling examination of complacency culture and the politics of beauty.